(Operator Instructions) Welcome to the Cintas Quarterly Earnings Results Conference Call. At this time I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Bill Gale, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you for joining us today to discuss our second quarter fiscal 2009 results. Joining me is Mike Thompson our Vice President and Treasurer. After some brief comments we will open the call to questions. For the quarter ending November 30, 2008, total revenue was $985.2 million a slight increase over the second quarter last year. The current economic slowdown impacted all of our business segments. We saw especially weak results in the sale of uniforms to the hospitality industry and also saw weakness in uniform rental as our customers reduced headcount or shut down facilities. Additionally, our rental revenues were negatively impacted by the rapid decrease in the value of the Canadian Dollar and the impact of the September gulf coast hurricanes. Net income was $71.8 million down from last year’s $82.9 million. Higher cost of energy, hangers, and employee medical expenses coupled with the rapid deterioration in revenues all contributed to the disappointing net income. Additionally, this years results were negatively impacted by a higher effective tax rate of 39.4% versus last years 38.3%. With the adoption of the new rules on tax accounting companies must be more precise on a quarterly basis in the recording of the tax provision versus the old rules which calculated taxes on an effective rate for the entire year. This quarter’s higher tax rate should be the highest of the year. By the end of the year we expect our rate for the entire year to be 37.1%. Shortly, Mike will provide you further details regarding growth by segment as well as a discussion of margins. During the quarter the company paid down approximately $80 million in Commercial Paper through aggressive management of capital spending and acquisitions. We will continue to focus on cash generation in order to take advantage of growth opportunities over the next few years as financial conditions improve. Due to the uncertainties that exist in the economy we must remove the previous guidance we provided for the fiscal year ending May 31, 2009. We are unable to determine the severity or the length of the recession and believe that any guidance we would provide would be subject to too much risk and therefore not meaningful. We recognize our obligation to our shareholders to manage our costs aggressively and are taking steps necessary to adjust to the new revenue levels. In addition, we will continue to focus on providing our customers with exceptional service. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides us safe harbor from civil litigation for forward looking statements. This conference call contains forward-looking statements that reflect the company’s current views as to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those we may discuss. I refer you to the discussion on these points contained in our most recent filings with the SEC. I would now like to turn the call over to Mike Thompson for additional commentary.

Total revenues were $985.2 million for our second quarter, a $1.3 million increase over the $983.9 million reported for the second quarter of fiscal 2008. As mentioned in our earnings release and by Bill, the current economic environment continues to impact our revenue. In addition, the weakening of the Canadian Dollar and the impact of September hurricanes reduced our revenue growth rate by approximately 1% for the quarter. This year’s second quarter had the same number of workdays as the second quarter of last year. However, this years first quarter had one less workday than the first quarter of fiscal 2008. Therefore, six month year to date results reflect one less work day in the same six month reporting period last fiscal year. Year to date revenue growth for the six months ended November 30, 2008, was 2.5% on a comparable workday basis. Total company internal growth was -0.7% for the quarter. Year to date internal growth was 1.6%. The remaining two quarters of fiscal 2009 will each have the same number of workdays, 65, as each of the last two quarters of fiscal 2008. Accordingly, fiscal 2009 will have 260 total workdays, one less than the 261 workdays last fiscal year. The number of workdays does have an impact on both revenue and income. As a reminder, we classify our businesses into four reportable operating segments; rental uniforms and ancillary products, uniform direct sales, first aid safety and fire protection services, and document management services. Uniform direct sales, first aid safety and fire protection service and document management services are combined and presented as other services on the face of the income statement. Detail for these operating segments is provided in the supplemental segment data included in the release. The rental uniforms and ancillary products operating segment consists of…

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: I’m wondering if you could first address, you call it in the press release, the $14.5 million higher costs associated with commodity costs and the hurricanes, etc. How much of that $14.5 million was actually already in your guidance or essentially how much actually came in greater than you had expected?

The hurricanes and Canadian Dollar probably were not quite as much included in there but we did assume energy costs at levels that were comparable to the first quarter going forward through the year. Hanger costs we certainly had seen that increase last year so that was pretty much in our guidance. The major problem as we talked about was the rapid deterioration in the revenue line which it’s very difficult to adjust your cost structure that quickly. That’s what we are aggressively doing but we’re concerned about what’s going to happen with the revenue going forward. That’s why we can’t give guidance at this point. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: I was just trying to understand in terms of your cost side of things especially as it relates to the $14.5 million what was actually greater than expected.

Certainly the medical costs were higher than we anticipated for the year. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: Is it fair that maybe even half of that $14.5 million was actually greater than you had originally expected?

I would say that’s right. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: In document management business your margins came down at least sequentially from about 13.5 to 9.6. Is it fair to say that that’s probably all related to lower scrap paper volume or just because actually energy costs should have been better sequentially?

Not all of it. I would say the majority of it but certainly some of it was based on volumes as some customers have reduced their frequency of service. The paper price was the majority. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: I’m trying to understand the magnitude of where margins can go, I know you don’t want to give too much guidance but just given that scrap paper prices continually come down is it probably fair to say that margins probably continue to come down sequentially just given the environment holding everything else steady.

We have a floor in our paper price contract so I don’t think you’re going to see substantial impact of paper prices from the pricing standpoint. What our concern would be would be more the volume. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: You think that margins actually should be able to, assuming volumes hold?

Volumes will be the key to it. It’s just impossible for me to predict volumes at this point. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: On the energy side of the equation in terms of what had you been doing with your customers in terms of trying to recoup some of the higher fuel costs going back over the last year, was it just generally in the form of higher prices, was it fuel surcharges? Are you having customers coming back to you asking for some price relief on that front?

It was primarily through the mechanism in our contracts of CPI price increases that we were able to pass along some of our cost increases. Although they tend to lag because they’re only done on an annual basis we don’t typically do just fuel surcharges. To answer your question, are customers coming back to us, not necessarily because the way it works is through the CPI increases. CPI changes that will get reflected in the annual price changes in the contract. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: Essentially the way we should be looking at this is as contracts come up for renewal on an annual basis and that will be staggered throughout the year that you may have to take prices back to back a little bit with CPI being adjusted. Other than that we shouldn’t expect a wholesale drop in prices.

Right. Andrea Wirth – Robert Baird: I’m wondering if you could just give us a little bit of thoughts on what your field reps are telling you in terms of the environment are things expected to get materially worse in terms of add stops especially we’re hearing quit a bit about January especially could be a very difficult month. I want to get some color as to what your field reps are telling you.

It varies by business unit. I would say that there is a lot of caution out there among our customers and our prospects because no one seems to know what’s going to happen. It’s almost a frozen mentality saying we really don’t want to commit any additional costs right now because we’re not sure how bad things are going to get. We also are concerned about how many plants which are being shut down here over the Christmas and New Years break are going to open up back right at the beginning of January. There probably will be some delays with regard to that. Our reps really probably don’t know much more than what you’re reading in the paper every day. Obviously every day that goes by and you see more closures and more reductions in headcount that’s concerning going forward.

Your next question comes from Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney: The steps that your taking to adjust to the new level of revenues, shutting down plants, lower headcount, could you help quantify and/or give some impact on timing of the benefit from it.

As Mike told you we have reduced our headcount over the last several months by 5% overall in the company and we continue to aggressively challenge any new hires or any replacement hires. I think that that benefit will start to play itself out here in the second half of our fiscal year. We did announce in December the shut down of two manufacturing plants in the state of Kentucky which will have an impact more so next fiscal year but will be but the cost of that shut down will be pretty much offset by the savings associated with it this fiscal year. The other things that we’re doing are just looking at all of the expenditures that we’re making in the company and making sure that they’re required to continue to obviously provide the customers the service levels that they expect and make sure they understand the value of the product offerings we’re giving them. Any discretionary expenditure that can be delayed is obviously being delayed. Any capital as Mike indicated to you is being delayed so we don’t need to expand our capacity right now because of the volume level. A significant opportunity will exist as we’re able to consolidate routes as volume drops on routes its not a quick thing to do but we will consolidate routes and eliminate those that are excess so that we can maximize the volume that are on our routes and that will continue in earnest a we go forward over the next several months. We believe that we can reduce our overall cost of doing business and hopefully we’ll be able to offset the revenue shortfalls that we’re seeing from what our original expectations were for this year. Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney: The revenue piece is not all that controllable but what is your assumption is it that the worsening continues for the next couple of quarters. How are you planning your business, are you assuming it plateaus out at this level or slightly worse?

We’ve got different scenarios that we’re anticipating. We could see a much more dramatic drop off or we could see a steady situation of what we see today. What we’re doing is we’re looking at it on an ongoing basis and trying to be as flexible as we can with our costs to adjust to whatever happens. I’ll be honest with you; I can’t predict what’s going to happen. We talk to customers, we read, obviously everything that’s in the press and its just very difficult at this time to predict what is going to happen over the next several months. As I mentioned to Andrea, how many plants are not going to reopen here right after the end of the holidays but are going to stay shut down for a period of time. What’s going to happen with the gaming industry throughout the country as customers continue to see weakness? All of these things we’re just going to have to try to be as flexible as we can to react to that lower revenue line by trying to keep our costs under control. There could be a number of different scenarios that will play out and we’ll just try to react accordingly.

As we’ve done it I think as I mentioned earlier as well we’re really looking to protect that cash flow that we have which is still strong and by looking at our CapEx expenditures and scrutinizing acquisitions, etc. we’re doing just that because we want to keep the healthy cash flows and our strong balance sheet maintained.

We actually anticipate right now, despite a pretty weak economic environment we’ll pay down our Commercial Paper by the end of the fiscal year. All we will have is all of our term debt where the first tranche of which doesn’t come due until 2012. We believe that that is a prudent thing to do at this point in time is really keep that strong balance sheet and keep our powder dry because as always happens in these downturns we’re going to see some great opportunities when we start coming out of it and we will be the strongest company in our businesses to take advantage of that.

To sum up we’re preparing for the worst but we want to react to the present conditions and we want to be able to service our customers effectively in the meantime. I think the flexibility Bill talked about is very important for us in maintaining that strong balance sheet and cash flow situation. Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney: On the topic of being flexible is there any appetite in your client base due to accept more flexible contracts that may be pass on some of the variability and commodity costs?

At this point in time I don’t think we’ve seen much appetite to change our normal contract terms. Obviously it becomes more of an opportunity in the non-uniform rental business because those typically have different types of contracts. We have to also be prudent in terms of dealing with our customers; they’re dealing with a lot of problems too. We look to the long-term relationship of our customers and we feel like we’ll work with them and they’ll work with us hopefully to keep both of us in a win, win situation.

We truly believe that our retention rates have held up well and it just shows that the products and services that we’re offering are being appreciated by customers. We’re retaining the customers where the customer is still there but it’s at lower volumes because of the financial impact they’re seeing through their business. Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney: Did you say the tax rate will continue to decline through the year or did you say it will settle at a lower level?

What will happen is in the third quarter; right now our tax rate is high year to date versus where we think we’ll be at the end of the year. To get from where we are today at about 38.3% to the 37.1% for the year you’re actually going to have a rate less than 36% over the last six months. Most of that correction will occur, we expect in Q3 such that the Q4 if you just look at it on a quarterly basis the Q4 effective tax rate is going to be slightly above 37.1%. We believe you’ll see a tax rate actually below 37.1% year to date through Q3. Ashwin Shirvaikar – Citigroup/Smith Barney: The results they don’t include the [inaudible] settlement that happened?

That announcement that just was made last night the fine associated with that agreement with OSHA has already been reflected in our financial statements. We’re very pleased to get that settlement behind us and we believe that we’ve got a very good program going forward to make sure that our operations are safely run and all the financial impact of the fines have already been reflected.

Your next question comes from Vance Edelson – Morgan Stanley Vance Edelson – Morgan Stanley: Does the sharp decline in recycled paper prices this year change your appetite at all for investing in that business and is that perhaps one of the best places to reduce investment and reduce expense going forward or do you see an eventual rebound in prices there that would make you want to keep charging forward?

We see document shredding continuing to be a very good growth vehicle for Cintas. Obviously the paper prices are just a series of reactions and overreactions. We think they’ll settle in somewhat higher. Even at these levels that we’re seeing right now we’re comfortable that this is a great business. Our margins will continue to improve regardless of paper prices because as we acquire more density and volume and we’re spending a lot of money on the selling side to grow that business it’s still a great opportunity for Cintas and we’re still very bullish on it.

We got into this business about six years ago and the recent run up in paper prices has really been over the last 18 months and then correction therein. When we got into the business the paper prices aren’t significantly different from where they are today. Not much of a change from that standpoint. Vance Edelson – Morgan Stanley: In terms of wanting to do smaller strategic acquisitions what are you seeing in terms of private market values have they been on the decline which might make for even more attractive targets out there is that what you’re seeing?

I don’t think we’ve seen it yet to the degree it needs to happen in order for us to become very aggressive on acquisitions. There periodically will come across one, as Mike mentioned, we spent a few million dollars in the second quarter. I think there is a shock that’s hit a lot of these private companies with the rapid deterioration in valuation not only for their businesses but just looking in general across the equity markets. It’s going to take a while for their expectations to adjust and we’ll be patient waiting for their expectations to get more in line with economic reality. Vance Edelson – Morgan Stanley: Going back on an earlier point, not to pound away at it too much but given that you expect economic improvement eventually and great opportunities as you put it could you talk about how much flexibility you really have in aggressively removing additional costs from here. How are you going to balance that in your mind with not wanting to hamper growth on the other side of the cycle?

The greatest opportunities we have right now are to efficiently run our route-based businesses. We are very actively looking at ways to improve volume levels on routes so that we can obviously take advantage of that as the economic downturn continues. Certainly looking at G&A what can we do to consolidate some of the activities in G&A. We’ve got, as Mike mentioned, we have a major project going forward with SAP which we believe will have significant benefits down the road on the way we handle some of our financial systems as well as our global supply chain activities. We’re not slowing down on those types of things. It takes time to get that stuff in place. I think that when we start coming out of this economic downturn we will be a much stronger company, much more efficiently run and we’ll see great margin improvements as you get more volume up on that top line.

In addition to that we have a significant push of ensuring that everything we do is considered valuated work and that is work that the customer appreciates as wanting to pay for. When we are streamlining businesses and looking at operational efficiencies the key for us is if there is value to the customer and they’re willing to pay for it we’re going to do it because we can still make a good return on it. It’s taking all these other processes that build up and ensuring that is everything that we’re doing really adding to what the customer appreciates. While that’s a concept that you can think negligibly about when you put it into actions there are a lot of things you can find and we’ve done that so far by reducing headcount by 5%.

Your next question comes from Gary Bisbee – Barclays Capital Gary Bisbee – Barclays Capital: Not to beat this one further but is it realistic to think, I realize that it could take a couple of quarters to get a lot of the cost initiatives you’re working on. Is it realistic to think that you could actually cost either SG&A or on the cost to goods sold line decline at some point or is it more likely just a more severe slowdown in the growth of the costs?

I think it’s realistic to think they could decline. We certainly have demonstrated some things there relative to our cost structure but as Mike said, we have medical costs ran away from us in the second quarter but the latest trends indicate that that’s going to come down to more normal levels. The impact of this headcount reduction is yet to be felt as we go forward. We’re very optimistic that we could see that happen assuming that something else just doesn’t go out of whack somewhere.

You just can’t get that immediately as Bill discussed earlier there is a little bit of a lag to get these things in place to make up for that loss of revenues. Gary Bisbee – Barclays Capital: On the uniform sales business obviously that’s lumpy and its probably upgrading uniforms for the big global customers is sort of a discretionary spending put off. Was there anything either in the year ago comparison or that you saw this quarter that could make the magnitude of the drop somewhat more of a one time issue or is it totally possible that we could see double digit declines in the top line there for a few quarters?

I’m having a difficult time predicting what’s going to happen but it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that these type of declines could continues because there really was nothing unusual in last years second quarter. As I stated earlier and as Mike talked about we just saw a really rapid decline on the part of our customers to purchase these uniforms because it was more of a discretionary spend. I don’t think any of you are surprised if you think about what’s happening with some of the big gaming companies or even the big hotel chains, they’re seeing significant reductions in their guest traffic and that is basically resulting in them doing everything they can to reduce their costs. It will come back, it always does I just think we’ve just got to get out of this doldrum here and get the economy moving again then we’ll be better positioned than any of our competitors because we’ve got the global supply chain, we’ve got the capabilities of providing a lot of different products and services that many of the smaller competitors may not be in existence to be able to do when the economy improves. Gary Bisbee – Barclays Capital: Obviously it looks like energy will be something that will be helpful over the next couple quarters. What about some of these other commodities, it seems to me it could be 60, 80, 100 basis points of help easily; it seems like for a few quarters if prices stay there. What about this other stuff, steel prices and some of the things have come down so are you seeing hanger costs and some of these other commodities that you referenced being up 60 basis points come down at all? Is that likely to continue to be a pressure in the near term?

Hangers are artificially being escalated because of the government intervention in putting the tariffs on. We are looking at opportunities to try to diminish the number of hangers that we’re using in our facilities to encourage recycling of hangers. There certainly will be a little bit of an impact because steel prices have come down recently. With all of the infrastructure projects that are being proposed steel may jump right back up. The big issue is there are not a lot of buyable hanger manufacturers left in the United States. Until we find a source that is not subject to the tariffs I’m not sure you’re going to see a lot of impact on hangers. It will anniversary itself in the fourth quarter because that’s when we began to first see the increases and hopefully through some of our conservation efforts we’ll minimize the use of hangers but that’s one that will probably stay there. Energy costs certainly should continue to provide a benefit going forward. We won’t have the hurricane issue. I can’t predict what’s going to happen with the exchange rates. The rapid increase in the Canadian Dollar has already been mitigated a little bit recently so hopefully that won’t be an ongoing issue. As Mike mentioned medical costs certainly we believe can improve going forward based on recent trends. Gary Bisbee – Barclays Capital: I talked to one of your drivers here this morning here who had a truck full of mats getting ready for the snowstorm we’re supposed to get. Hopefully that will happen and drive a little incremental revenue for you.

For our sake hopefully it will happen. For your sake I’m sure it will be more of a hassle.

Your next question comes from Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: I’d like to ask about the pricing environment you’re seeing out there, obviously with the economic pressures. I believe you alluded to a recent pricing increase that had taken well. If I could just get a little more elaboration on the topic.

What I’d indicated was price increases while a little more difficult in the quarter held up relatively well. Pricing continues to be fairly aggressive in the marketplace. Certainly with customers our prospects being very diligent on their financial situations I’d say price increases have been a little more difficult but overall considering where the marketplace is we felt that they held up relatively well. Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: You guys have been making a gradual move to some global operations and some verticals that you’ve alluded to on this call that have been hit pretty hard. What is the status now obviously with cost constraints, are you slowing that effort or is that something that you’re still looking to push.

We’re still looking to push it. It’s a longer-term play as we’ve mentioned before. We see opportunities they won’t have a material impact in our financials in the short term but we still think despite the economic issues that there are great opportunities for us to take some of or services outside of North America and we will continue to pursue those as the right opportunities present themselves.

From a capital perspective we’re holding a significant amount of dollars in our Canadian operations that we don’t repatriate back to the United States for tax reasons that we really have earmarked for foreign expansion that doesn’t affect our debt structure or anything like that. It’s really looking at the opportunities and ensuring that the growth that we’re projecting and the costs for that in those countries and in those divisions makes sense. Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: Looking a bit more at the cost side 5% headcount reduction thus far is that something that you see, we’ve had a few questions trying to gauge how much more of that is there to come and how do you want to look coming out of the backside of the economy hopefully in the economic turn. Is that something that you are continuing to aggressively do, it alludes to more to come in the future in the press release.

There is more to come as we continue to adjust to the economic reality that we have and we’re doing that micromanaging as I said, every replacement hire, every new hire in the company to ensure that it’s absolutely necessary to create value added work and provide the service to our customers. If we don’t see the top line begin to grow quickly again you’re going to see more cost reduction through headcount reduction because we will continue to adjust to the economic reality.

Of the headcount reduction we have put in place we haven’t seen the full benefit yet. We didn’t have one set date where we reduced our entire workforce, its been based on turnover and not replacing that turnover and ensuring that we again evaluate value added work and ensure that position needs to be replaced and in many cases we’re deciding it doesn’t need to be and that’s where the 5% is coming from. Scott Schneeberger – Oppenheimer: How are you handling your sales force is that larger, smaller than it was a quarter ago? The way you define non-value added, the sales force obviously has a direct touch on customers but if the customer is not spending are we discussing sales force as well in that group?

We absolutely are. We’ll right size the sales force to reflect what the opportunities are. There is no group within the company that does not go without scrutiny. Sales force is certainly part of that.

You’ve go to also understand that we balance out the sales force among the different opportunities across all divisions.

Keep in mind we were on plan through the first quarter of our fiscal year when we talked to you guys in September. We saw a little weakness in August but we really saw it just accelerate as we went through the second quarter. You’ve got to be careful here you don’t want to react too quickly but we certainly saw enough during this quarter that said we’ve got to react because things just continued to deteriorate. We’ll see the benefit of that going forward it just didn’t happen yet in this quarter.

Your last question comes from Greg Halter – Great Lakes Greg Halter – Great Lakes: Relative to the competitive environment out there specifically surrounding the smaller guys what are you seeing in that regard?

We are certainly seeing concern on the part of the smaller competitors. They certainly don’t have the same financial wherewithal that we do to continue to provide great services to their customer. I would tell you that if past is indication of future many of these smaller competitors are going to find it very difficult to continue as a private company and I think you’ll see more consolidation going forward as this economic downturn continues.

Their access to capital for growth has been hurt pretty severely as has with many companies. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: Have you seen any of your competitors go out of business yet that you are aware of?

No significant competitor yet. It’s early. While we’ve been kind of muddling through some economic headwinds throughout most of this year it really accelerated in our second quarter. I think it will be another year or so of that before you’ll really begin to see real pressure on a lot of these guys. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: If you look around the country, at least in North America, are there any areas that are worse than others and any areas that are better than others if you could lay out?

Widespread, we’re having more difficulty certainly where most people are, Florida, the rust belt, Cleveland area, Detroit, up in those areas. Our Northeast is performing a little better; Southwest because of energy is performing a little better. When I say better I don’t mean it’s good I think across the country it’s been hurt. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: Southeast with oil at $33 or $38 may not be doing a little better.

That’s right. I would say it’s a pretty widespread downturn throughout the country. Obviously as Mike said, some areas are much worse than others. It’s not going to be a good situation for a while. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: How much is Canada of your revenues in total?

Less than 10%. We don’t break it out separately. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: Do you do any hedging on currency at all?

We do some, we hedged a little bit, the Canadian Dollar weakened so fast that we weren’t able to hedge as much as we would have liked at this point in time. Hopefully another opportunity will present itself. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: I presume your share repurchase is scrap for the time being?

We did not buy any shares back in the last quarter and our focus right now is on cash generation and debt reduction. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: If tax laws were changed in the US would you consider repatriating that cash?

Sure, absolutely. Greg Halter – Great Lakes: On your ERP system you mentioned its going to the financial and one other area and I missed that?

Global supply chain.

This concludes our question and answer session at this time I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Thompson for any closing or additional comments.

Thank you again for participating in today’s call. On behalf of all of our Cintas partners we wish you and your families a very joyous holiday and hopefully a more prosperous 2009. We’ll look forward to speaking with you again in March.

This concludes today’s conference we thank you for your participation. At this time you may now disconnect your line.